Eating Earth – a feeling of grounding
Eating earth is not as strange as it may seem at first. In many cultures around the globe, ingesting earth is an old practice, but stigmatized and taboo in the western world. The artist Dr. masharu’s (They/Them) is challenging this stigma.
Text by Mathias Krogsøe
Photos by Mathias Krogsøe & Jester van Schuylenburch
The smell of wet dirt after a summer rain is a sensation that is commonly agreed upon as pleasant, like the sounds of birds chirping when taking a stroll in nature or the feeling of walking through a humid forest right before a thunderstorm. However, although the smell of the rain-wet summer dirt is something many appreciate, not as many go the step further, touching it with their fingertips or picking the moist topsoil up in their hands. And even fewer still put the wet dirt in their mouths to get a taste of the medium behind the pleasant smell. Dr. masharu is one of those who goes the extra mile.
Dr. masharu (they/them) is a Russian-born artist living and working in Amsterdam. They work with earth, mud, soil, dirt, clay, and salt, and the relationship between earth and the people of the world. The practice of tasting and eating the earth is central to their work.
“It gives some kind of feeling of grounding. It sounds a bit weird, but that’s how it feels. I just feel the smell of Earth, I feel its taste, and then I feel a bit more connected to earth again, when I’m feeling a bit too lost.”
For masharu, it started with a desire, a craving for chalk. The craving started when they did their Ph.D. in mathematics at Eindhoven University of Technology in 2011. At that time, blackboards were still in use, so there was a lot of chalk to write with around.
“I was like, wow, this chalk is really calling me. I’m just seeing it, and my mouth got watery. And then I thought, I will just go ahead and try to eat it, secretly. And then I thought, wow, this is so tasty.”
It tasted like nothing else; they were used to eating. Soon they began exploring other types of Earth, and an obsession started growing:
“Because the more I was eating, the more I wanted. And then I found all these communities online of people who eat Earth, and I thought, wow, this is so fascinating. And also, what is fascinating is that this is officially a psychological disorder, and the topic is very marginalized.”
This stigma surrounding the topic sparked the idea of bringing it into the public space and, together with other people exploring this taboo, which is a more common practice in many places outside of the Western world. Dr. masharu started collecting different types of earth which are eaten by humxns. They began creating workshops and talks about the subject, as well as performances, often inviting people to join in and interact with the earth in various ways.
“it feels like just taking something which is already out there, which already exists, and just giving it some attention, dignity, by practicing it.”
(left: The performance: Discoursing Clay I (In The Hague, the Netherlands, 2018) Photo: Jester van Schuylenburch. Middle+right: The shelves of the museum are made in a modular system designed by Basse Stittgen, so I can easily be extended or rearranged. Photo: Mathias Krogsøe.)
Since 2012 they have worked artistically with eating earth, exploring its properties and relationships with different cultures. In 2017 they started the project “Museum of Edible Earth”, which is a traveling collection of about 550 samples of edible earth, from 42 countries. So far, the collection has been displayed in 17 countries, part of it is currently in Ars Electronica Center in Austria, and the rest resides in Dr. masharu’s Amsterdam Studio at the moment.
The concept came about as a way of presenting and providing an overview of the earth samples to the public and also maintaining the growing collection. The archival system is reminiscent of the way scientists store their samples; each sample on the shelves has its own plastic container with the name of the sample, where it comes from, and when it was added to the museum.
(Earth tablets like this one are known as ‘Pan de Dios’ in Spanish or ‘Bread of God’ in English. They are stamped with Christian images, such as crosses, Jesus, and the mother Mary. This tablet come from the pilgrimage town of Esquipulas in Guatemala and is blessed by the Catholic Church. Photo: Mathias Krogsøe.)
“Right now, I focus more on conceptual developments. I want to explore more how to work with the taste of Earth. We are collecting data during exhibitions, like feedback from visitors regarding their tasting experiences, and we create an overview of possible tastes from that.”
The physical installation of the earth samples in the museum is not the artwork in itself. Far from it.
“For me the main drive, is the practice, and sharing this practice, sharing it with the audience. This is the central part of the exhibition. The whole thing is not about the visual of the installation, but the fact that we can taste it.” The artist says, adding:
“Because, I mean, it’s looking nice, they can put it in the museum and just look at it, but for me it’s important that people can taste it, if they want to. At their own risk, because it might not be safe, necessarily.”
When Dr. masharu holds workshops on earth tasting and the cultural practices behind it, where people can taste the many different kinds of clay, chalk, topsoil, mud, and so on, there is a disclaimer beforehand. Then people can choose to eat or not to eat.
(Photo: Mathias Krogsøe.)
Of course, this aspect of danger adds to the intrigue for some. But, unfortunately, it also adds to the stigma. The samples in the museum come from many different sources. Some were collected on field trips, others were presents from people who liked the project and wanted to contribute, and others were bought online or in health shops. Some are being sold as face masks and scrubs, but people are also buying them to eat, masharu says. Some cultural stores sell them under the table because it is not regulated or approved.
On the museum website, people can find information on the different samples. The website also describes what the samples taste like, with descriptions such as: “Deep, fat taste of swamp with a sticky, a little grainy texture, sticky to the tongue.”. Under each sample description, people who have attended the workshop or exhibitions can add comments telling others what they think it tastes like.
All this data gets collected by Dr. masharu and organized in different ways to provide an overview of the tastes. One of the ways is the word cloud taste map.
(Each word on the map comes from people who have tasted earth with masharu. The bigger they are the more commonly they get mentioned when describing the tastes. Photo: Mathias Krogsøe)
Mellemrubrik
The former professional mathematician still uses their scientific background in their artistic work. When collecting and organizing the data, and when reading research about the earth and scientific analysis of them.
“With my scientific background, I understand the academic environment, and it is helpful to approach scientific institutions. I can also relate to scientific literature. I can understand the formulas, the numbers that they’re giving. I worked with chemical analysis of Earth, but then, of course, what I’m getting is a bunch of numbers. So I need to analyze and understand what it means.”
Going from studying mathematics and writing a Ph.D. thesis on “Automated focusing and astigmatism correction in electron microscopy” to being an artist working with conceptual, installation, and performance art might seem like a big shift for some, but not for Dr. masharu:
“I was working in science, now I’m working in arts, but I don’t see this division myself so strongly.”
In the scientific world, one often relies on working in an institution and grants to fund research, which means one can be forced to work in a narrow field. The artist recognized that eating earth is still a very specific subject, but they do not feel limited to one area; they describe it as limitless:
“I’m really driven to interdisciplinarity, in a sense of bringing together different disciplines in my work. I still work with science, and soil scientists, chemical engineers and anthropologists. I work in arts, I work in performance, I work with design. I work even with spiritual practitioners who are interested in Earth. I’m meeting all types of people. And this is very interesting to me”.
(Photo: Mathias Krogsøe)
Dr. masharu identifies as nonbinary and started using the gender-neutral pronouns they/them privately in 2017-18. In 2019 they started using these pronouns professionally, asking the journalist politely to use gender-neutral language when referring to them.
Their work has gained the interest of many Dutch and international media, giving interviews to magazines, newspapers, TV, and Radio shows worldwide. And for some journalists, using gender-neutral pronouns was not something they would do. At first, some news outlets would just use their name when referring to them and nothing else; others wouldn’t do it at all.
“So then, in 2021, I decided to insist. So not just suggest but say that’s how it must be.
And then it got very complicated.”
Some said it was too difficult and dropped the productions altogether; others said they would use the correct pronouns and then didn’t, misgendering masharu in the articles or interviews.
“I did some interviews in 2022. And by then I was really aware and really demanding that I check everything before it goes out. Which is very tiring. And also, I don’t speak a lot of these languages. So, it’s difficult for me to check. It takes me effort because I need to find people who speak French or German or Thai and so on”
Artists rely on publicity, to get their work out there, to as many people as possible. But masharu will not compromise anymore, as they did in the past, not wanting to battle with big media outlets and risk losing publicity. If something gets published about them, where they are misgendered, it needs to be corrected or taken down.
“it’s big media and it’s important for me to be featured there. So it takes strength for me to say, okay, I actually don’t want to be here without proper pronouns. So just go ahead and remove it.”
Last year this happened with ARTE, a French and German language culture tv-channel. ARTE made a 6 minute video feature on masharu and their work. The media, which promotes itself as a LGBTQ+ friendly platform, promised masharu beforehand to respect their wishes, and use gender-neutral language. But when the feature was broadcasted, masharu was very frustrated to learn they hadn’t kept the promise.
“There were features in two languages coming out. In French I was misgendered two times. In German it was completely non-gender neutral. I was so angry and upset also because it took me a lot of effort to provide material to actually make this feature.”
When masharu contacted ARTE about this problem, the French producer apologized and took steps to correct it. The German translators reacted very differently:
“They wrote a very rude email back. They misgendered me in their email. They said that it’s not possible to use gender-neutral language in German. They said that their audience would not understand it.”
Frustrated and angry masharu took up the battle with the German translators. Telling them that it is in fact possible to use the proper language in German. Or that they could just not use pronouns at all and refer to them by name only. masharu also mentioned a Russian 26-minute central TV feature, that had been made about them, with no misgendering at all, in a language that is even more gender specific than German, and in a media landscape that can’t exactly be described as LGBTQ+ friendly, as ARTE claims to be. All this eventually got the German translators to change the wording in the feature.
masharu is glad they took up the battle with journalists and the media, as it’s important for people to be properly represented, but also says they underestimated how big a struggle it would be:
“I underestimated the struggle when I took it on. That it also had mental circumstances for me. I had to explain myself all the time, and often felt that my explanations were not taken seriously. That I’m not taken seriously as a person, basically. And this is already not so easy necessarily to come out as non-binary, because of all their societal judgments.”
Times are changing fast, also in the media landscape, with more and more media outlets adopting policies for using gender-neutral language when requested. masharu hopes that it becomes easier, and less of a struggle in the future, because more and more articles are being published about them, using the correct pronouns, and that it will create a kind of snowball effect. So, they can spend less time and mental energy on educating ignorant journalists, and more time on their practice, and sharing the experience of eating earth with more people in the future.
(Oprindeligt bragt på SVJMEDIA.NL)